Soil roughness generally refers to the roughness of soil in a field. Soil roughness is a product of or otherwise influenced by the number and size of soil clods included within the soil. Soil clods refer to portions of the soil that are denser than the surrounding soil, thereby forming a separate clod.
For various reasons, it is important to maintain a given amount of soil roughness within a field before or following an agricultural operation. For example, when planting seeds it is generally not desired to have soil clods that are larger than a certain size.
As such, the ability to monitor and/or adjust the amount of soil roughness within a field can be very important to maintaining a healthy, productive field, particularly when it comes to performing tillage and/or planting operations. However, typical soil analysis may be time consuming, expensive, and data intensive.